Salina Cafe owner, cast out by flood, in fight not to lose property

Anne Brady seeks reduced-price buyout on what's left of her home

Nearly one year since the flood that transformed lives up and down Colorado's Front Range, the future of one mountain community's social anchor remains very much in doubt.

Anne Brady, owner of the Salina Cafe on Gold Run Road about seven miles west of Boulder, lost her house to the flood — it had to be bulldozed — and no longer enjoys the revenue of a badly damaged rental unit that also stood on her land.

The popular cafe, a favored meeting place for locals and visitors alike, remains a useless shell.

Whether Brady, 66, can ever live there again, and restore and reopen the cafe, depends most immediately on resolving the status of her outstanding $247,562 debt to Wells Fargo, which holds the mortgage on her ravaged property.

"I look at it, and I feel heartsick and I feel exhausted," said Brady, who has lived since the flood with a friend in Denver.

She bought the Salina property in 1980, and started operating the cafe — a Boulder County Historic Landmark built in 1886 — in 1987.

Brady said that she no longer goes to Salina very often, although she was there on Thursday, visiting a friend for whom she will be doing some house-sitting soon.

"At this point after all these months, it's sort of heart wrenching," she said. "I feel physically ill" seeing what is left of her longtime home.

'I would be broke'

Brady didn't have flood insurance, and a claim on her homeowner's insurance policy was denied.

The past year has seen Brady in a protracted effort to persuade Wells Fargo to accept a lump-sum buyout of her mortgage, at a price that reflects the value of the little that is left standing, but might also leave her the whisper of a hope that she could rebuild there, in some way.

In January, Brady made Wells Fargo an offer of $90,000. That represents the entirety of her savings, and is also close to double the $55,000 that she says she learned a Wells Fargo post-flood appraisal estimated to be its value.

Anne Brady looks out the window of her flood-damaged Salina Cafe in a portrait taken Thursday. Brady lost her home in the flood, and is fighting not to lose the property to her lender. (Jeremy Papasso / Daily Camera)

If Wells Fargo were to accept her $90,000 offer, she said, "I would be broke afterward. I would be dependent on getting grant money and help to get at least the habitable portion (of the rental property) repaired.

"The cafe may have to be razed, but there's (also) a possibility to get it back for the community use."

Small Business Development Grants and other grants could help Brady bring the cafe back, she says, "but the more time that goes by, the grant money is going elsewhere."

'It is my home'

In a July 17 letter to Wells Fargo that she shared with the Daily Camera, Brady said she had been given four successive dates by the bank from April through June by which a resolution of her buyout offer would supposedly be reached.

That letter mentions that she has also enlisted the help of the offices of both U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder.

In that letter, Brady told the bank, "I am tired, frustrated, at my wit's end. I do not think I can survive another 5 months of delay and uncertainty." She added that she is suffering insomnia and blood pressure that "has been out of control."

Laura Cangey Symmonds, an executive mortgage specialist for Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, said Thursday that she could not discuss Brady's case with a member of the media.

The Boulder law firm of Berg Hill Greenleaf & Ruscitti has been helping Brady pro bono.

"What we're trying to accomplish is, we're trying to pay off Wells Fargo on what is called a short sale. In other words, pay off the value of the post-flood value of the property, and Wells Fargo has sold the loan to Fannie Mae," said George Berg, the firm's managing partner.

"Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo have to agree on what the value of the property is."

Berg said it is his understanding that Wells Fargo has ordered a new appraisal on Brady's property.

"Wells Fargo, quite frankly, is working to help us. But they have to prove to Fannie Mae that there's a greatly reduced value of the property," Berg said.

Near the conclusion of her July 17 letter to Wells Fargo, Brady stated that her old mountain community still looks like a war zone.

"Yet, it is my home," she wrote. "For my health and my sanity, it is time to bring this matter to a close."

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